It is still a big secret for everyone, but the members of GroenLinks in Brabant will hear on Saturday what has been agreed in the coalition agreement. The party then holds a secret meeting to share that information with its members. Opposition parties in the Provincial Council react in amazement: “The members of GroenLinks are not above the rest of the Brabant people and above the Provincial Council.”
At the beginning of this month, the opposition parties demanded clarity about the progress of the formation. More than two months after the elections, they were still completely in the dark about this. They found it unacceptable, after which they demanded an extra meeting.
The Provinces Act states that if one fifth of the members of Parliament request such a meeting, it must also be held. The meeting was to take place next Friday.
Formateur Pieter Verhoeve promptly announced last Monday that the forming parties (BBB, VVD, PvdA and GroenLinks) were almost out and that an agreement would be reached next Monday.
“There is no level playing field.”
Last Monday evening all group chairmen met and decided that the extra meeting next Friday was no longer necessary. After all, there was almost an agreement.
Last Monday evening, various parties asked what steps still needed to be taken. “We explicitly asked what was still to come. Those were just dots on the i,” says Willem Rutjens of JA21. Not a word was said about the members’ meeting of GroenLinks.
The email to the members of GroenLinks states the following:
“We are at the point where we want to present the agreement to the members at an extra General Members’ Meeting. During this meeting, not yet public information is shared with the members present, information that we cannot share by email or in any other way. This We will share information with you in confidence on Saturday, but must remain secret until the presentation of the administrative agreement to the Provincial Council.
The fact that members are consulted about an agreement is, in principle, not surprising to the opposition parties. But the fact that it happens secretly and that only the members of GroenLinks receive information grates on the members of Parliament. PVV member Alexander van Hattem: “Of course there is no level playing field. Much has been said about transparency. This is absolutely not.”
“Long warm-up and then a false start.”
Ronnie Buiks of the CDA: “I just feel cheated. This should have been reported in the meeting on Monday.” Willem Rutjens of JA21 does not have a good word for it either. “This is of course the completely wrong order and then members of Parliament are also incompletely informed. Warming up for a long time and then a false start for the coalition.”
The annoyance and unrest could have been prevented, says Nico Heijmans of the SP. “My colleagues in Limburg also have to get approval from our members. But the draft administrative agreement has already been presented there. Then the SP members vote on it. To be transparent, but also so that they know what it is about at all.”
“Then we don’t have an agreement.”
If the members of GroenLinks do not agree to the agreement on Saturday, an even bigger problem will arise. When asked what will happen if they don’t, GroenLinks says they don’t assume that. But the chance exists, albeit small. “Then we have no agreement,” says GroenLinks Member of Parliament Jade van der Linden. And that would mean that all negotiations on a new provincial coalition would have to start all over again.